Truck To Success details steps for starting out as an owner-operator

Even truck drivers who know a lot about trucking may have a lot to learn when it comes to establishing their own operation.

From deciding on a business entity to determining a type of authority to dealing with permits – to name just a few of the steps required to get started – securing your own authority is anything but easy. This is why the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association offers Truck To Success, an annual three-day course for truckers thinking about going into business for themselves.

“This is your chance to learn all that you can,” Tom Weakley, retired director of operations for the OOIDA Foundation, said during the 2024 Truck To Success. “You have to think much differently as an owner-operator. It’s a whole different world.”

That different thinking starts as early as applying for authority, which Caleb Sears with OOIDA’s Business Services department detailed in a Truck To Success presentation. From basics such as applying as an interstate carrier versus an intrastate carrier to a step-by-step look at the authority process, Sears covered all of the topic’s need-to-knows.

He also advised on some necessities that come into play once active authority is achieved – such as breaking any existing lease agreement with another carrier, enrolling in a drug- and alcohol-testing consortium and obtaining applicable permits.

Among those applicable permits may be an International Registration Plan (IRP), which simplifies the registration process for commercial vehicles operating in multiple jurisdictions, and an International Fuel Tax Agreement (IFTA), which simplifies the reporting of fuel used by motor carriers that operate in more than one jurisdiction. Sears went into detail about each of these – noting, for example, what documentation is needed for an IRP and what must be reported in an IFTA filing.

At a later point in last year’s Truck To Success, attendee Russell Peterson – a leased-on owner-operator based in Springfield, Mo. – said the IFTA information presented stood out to him as something especially important to know as he considered obtaining his own authority.

“We’re all talking about saving that money and putting more money in your pocket,” he added. “And fuel being a big part of the operation – how do I do that?”

Beyond IRP and IFTA, Sears also gave an overview of various other permits and ongoing requirements – such as weight-distance and freight-specific permits, U.S. DOT biennial updates and taxes pertinent to owner-operators, to name just a few.

Learning the ins and outs of permits could be initially overwhelming for anyone, and some words of wisdom from the previous presentation were worth applying here. That presentation, given by tax expert Barry Fowler, focused on choosing a business entity and included its own substantial set of information to process.

But as Fowler noted, anyone who has the will and initiative to tackle these topics is much more likely to be successful as a business owner.

For anyone who isn’t this kind of self-starter, he advised, “Don’t be an owner-operator. It takes drive.”

The next Truck To Success is scheduled for Oct. 21-23 in Blue Springs, Mo. Registration is open on the event’s website for both in-person and online attendance.